Author's Note: This chapter features scenes of graphic violence, including mention of past domestic violence.

"If somebody puts their hands on you, make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again." -Malcolm X

50 days sober

From the moment I walk into school on the first day of November, everything is completely and utterly fucked. I manage to take about five steps down the hallway towards my locker before Annabelle is on me, dragging me into a mostly deserted stairwell and whispering, “Okay, please tell me you know. Because you need to know, but if you don’t know, I really don’t think I can handle being the person who tells you. So, if you don’t know, you’re going to need to wait here while I go get Riley so he can tell you.” “Tell me what?” I ask. “About Joss and Travis. But mostly Joss,” she says. There’s a brief hesitation, and then she says, “She told us last night, at Miranda’s. And I think you know what I’m talking about, because you’re not moving at all right now, but I don’t want to say the words, in case you don’t—Garen, please tell me that you’ve heard about Joss’, you know, condition.” My stomach lurches, because fuck. It’s not like I thought that this would stay a secret forever—the people in this town have a collective IQ pretty similar to that of a retarded hamster, but by the time Joss starts to show, even they won’t be able to overlook it. I knew people would find out, but I didn’t know it would be this soon. I swallow hard and say, “Yeah. I know. I’ve uh, I’ve known for about three weeks now.” “Holy fuck,” she hisses. “How could you not tell anyone?” Because I’m still trying to figure out how to be friends with these people. Because everyone would have assumed I was making it up to make trouble for Joss just because I hate her. Because a huge part of me has been hoping that this is all a bad dream, and that when I wake up, she won’t be his girlfriend, that baby won’t exist, and he’ll be lying next to me. “Because I promised Travis I wouldn’t, okay? But that’s not—look, who else knows? Just you, and Riley, and Miranda, right? Please tell me—” But my words die in my mouth, because she is shaking her head slowly from side to side. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I can’t seem to force out the question, so I make a vague prompting gesture, hoping to communicate my desire to know how bad it really is. She shoots me a helpless look, then says, “She said it right in the middle of the party, okay? Everyone was there, we all heard—” “Who?” I demand. “Who is ‘everyone’? Just—the lunch group? You guys, Nate, Christine, John—” “No, Garen, you’re not getting it. It was a big group of us at the party, not just the regular people. It’s on facebook. Everyone knows. The entire grade. I’ve been hovering by the front door of the fucking school, hoping to catch Travis before he comes inside, but he isn’t here yet. I saw you first.” Hand trembling, I slip my phone from my pocket and thumb through my contacts list to select Travis’ number. It rings, and rings, and rings, and finally, it goes to voicemail. Hey, you’ve reached Travis McCall. Please leave your name and number after the tone, and I’ll get back--I hang up and dial again. Annabelle touches my shoulder, and I step back, out of reach. “He can’t walk in here not knowing, alright? I’ve gotta warn the guy.” When my second call is also sent to voicemail, I try a third time, and a fourth. Finally, I get a text. Oh my god, stop calling me. I have a bitch of a headache and my ringtone is really loud. On my way to school, see you in like 5 minutes. Fuck, this is not good. The last thing he needs is to come strolling into school, hungover as shit, not realizing that the entire school knows what’s going on. Shrugging off Annabelle, I abandon the stairwell and head for the front doors to wait. The moment I see Travis getting out of his car and wandering closer, I launch myself through the doors and down the steps. It’s hard to tell when he finally looks at me, because his hungover, photosensitive eyes are hidden by sunglasses. My sunglasses. He’s wearing my aviators, the same way his jacket is layered over my Patton hoodie, same as my boots are tucked under his arm. He’s got me all over him. Under normal circumstances, that’d have me grinning like a schoolgirl, but right now, it just seems… wrong. Inappropriate, I guess, though I’ve never really given a shit about being appropriate before. Right there at the edge of the parking lot, I kick off the borrowed pair of sneakers I’m wearing and stuff them into his hands, subbing them out for the boots. When I look back at his face, he’s giving me a hesitant smile, like he’s trying to see if I’m thinking about the fact that the last time we were alone together, I had him pressed against a brick wall and asking to be kissed. “Travis,” is all I can manage at first. “Garen,” he responds, and I wonder if he’s mocking me. He hastily continues, “Look, about last night?” “Wait, before you say anything, there’s something you need to—” “Hang on. Just… please let me talk, alright? Last night, I shouldn’t have said any of the things I said.” His tone is hushed enough that he needs to step closer for me to hear him. I can’t be sure—those fucking sunglasses, how does anyone put up with me?—but I think he’s staring at my mouth. “I shouldn’t have told you I love you, and I definitely shouldn’t have asked you to kiss me. It’s—James is a lot better at beer pong than I’d anticipated, and by the time you and I were outside, I was—I was too drunk to remember all the reasons why I should have lied to you and pretended that I didn’t—that I don’t want—” I reach out and give his wrist a hard yank to startle him into silence. The moment his mouth has snapped shut, I release him and say, as calmly as I can manage, “Last night, at Miranda’s house, Joss told people she’s pregnant. The whole school knows.” His entire body freezes up. It’s nearly a solid minute later when he manages to unlock his jaw enough to echo, “The whole school knows?” I nod. “I don’t understand. Why would—people were bound to find out eventually, but I don’t—I haven’t even told my family yet. Why the fuck would she let a bunch of strangers know before she even lets me tell my parents?” he asks, sounding miserable. I want to hit him. Because she’s a terrible person, I want to burst out. Because she’s awful and vicious and manipulative, and it’s a lot easier to control you with her pregnancy, if everyone knows about it, too. But even now, I doubt that he would really hear a word of it; he barely knows her, but she’s still the mother of his baby, and that has provoked some weird sort of trust within him. There’s a Josslyn is great, Garen is an asshole switch in his mind that gets flipped every morning, and all I can do right now is try to make sure that he’s focused on the bit about Joss and not the part about me. I force a shrug. “I don’t know, man. Maybe it just slipped out in front of one person and then—I mean, you know how things like this spread. You said you only came out to a couple of people, and the entire school knew within a matter of days.” The words are meant to be placating, but he just goes pale and shakes his head violently from side to side. “No. Fuck, G, this cannot turn out like that. It’s—those first few days, when everyone was just finding out about me, they were the worst, and I can’t—I know people here don’t really like me that much, okay? I know I annoy a lot of people, I always have, and when something shitty happens to me, like everyone finding out I’m bi before I wanted them to know, it’s like—people love bringing me down a peg, and I can’t deal with that right now—” “Believe me, I know that,” I say, winding my fingers around his wrists in what I hope is a comforting gesture. “The assholes at this place have been treated me in the worst way since I came back, because I don’t know, apparently me going to rehab and fucking up my life is funny, somehow? So, I understand how much it sucks when they talk about you, but I also know that you can get through it—” “I can’t,” he interrupts, and when I try to protest, he just shakes his head and steps closer, saying more vehemently, “No, you’re not listening to me, Garen. You can handle something like this, because you’re stronger than I am, alright? You have this overwhelming certainty about who you are, you know how to be a man in situations like this, but I don’t. I’ve been so close to just—” But what he’s been so close to, I don’t find out, because he breaks off, yanking the sunglasses off so that he can drag a palm across his face, like that might help clear his thoughts. Behind me, the warning bell rings for homeroom, and he instinctively takes a step towards the building. I squeeze his wrists tighter—and it pisses me off so much that the few people still making their way from their cars to the school are staring at us—and say, “Hey, listen to me. I don’t care what you say, man. This situation sucks, but you’re going to be fine. So, go find your girlfriend, go talk this out, and just—you’ll get through it, yeah?” He takes a sudden, final step towards me, bringing us chest-to-chest. For half a second, I think—hope, maybe—that he’s going to give me that kiss I should have taken last night, but he just loops an arm around my waist to keep me in place as he brings his mouth to my ear and whispers hoarsely, “About a month ago, I started planning my suicide. I had everything figured out—how I was going to do it, where I was going to do it, when I was going to do it. But I couldn’t go through with it, because after thirty-five different drafts, I still couldn’t get the note right.” My body turns to a useless pile of blood and bones so quickly that he has to tighten his grip on my waist to stop me from stumbling. There’s a tiny breath of a laugh against the shell of my ear, even though nothing about this could ever be funny. “It’s the stupidest fucking reason for a person not to kill himself, right? But the idea that people would remember me as ‘Travis McCall, the idiot who couldn’t even get his suicide note right’ was so terrifying to me that I couldn’t even off myself. That’s how pathetic I am, Garen. I don’t know how to be alive, but I don’t know how to be dead, either. Trust me when I say that I don’t know how to get through this.” The late bell rings. His arm drops from my waist, and he attempts to take a step back, but I can’t let him. The idea of allowing the conversation to end here, after he has just dropped that bomb on me, is unbearable. I throw my arms around him and drag him back in, crushing him to my chest hard enough to force a faint oh of surprise out of him. My face is buried against the side of his neck, which means my voice is muffled when I say, “Don’t. We’re not going inside yet.” “We’re late for homeroom,” he says. Sometimes, it still blows my mind that after everything I’ve been through, I still have to worry about something as trivial as being late for homeroom. Sometimes, I forget that I’m just eighteen. I shake my head and wedge my hands under Travis’ backpack so that I can fist them around the material of his jacket. “I don’t give a fuck if we’re late to homeroom. The front office gives out late passes, I’ll just tell them we had car trouble. But right now, I need you to just let me touch you for a little while. I need to know that you’re here, and you’re alive, and you’re okay.” It makes no difference. Me holding him now does nothing to take away from the weeks—months, maybe—of suffering that I had no idea he was putting up with. It doesn’t make anything different, or better, or bearable, but eventually, he slips his own hands under my backpack to settle them in the small of my back, fingers laced together and palms shaking so hard I can feel the vibration even through the leather. He says, “I really don’t think I can do this, G.” “Do you want me to take you back home? You could blow off today’s classes, wait for the rumor mill to die down a—” “I kind of meant in a more general sense. Joss keeps asking me what I’ll do to make sure the baby has a good life, and I told her—I keep telling her that I’ll do anything for her. For them. God, I’ll give up everything I have to make this work, that’s the easiest decision I’ve ever made, but I—things like this? People finding out, knowing what they’re going to say about me? This is the part I’m really afraid of.” I kiss the side of his neck, then just below his ear, then the edge of his jaw. His breathing is shaky, though I don’t know if it’s from the stress of this situation, or the feeling of my mouth on his skin. My next kiss lands on his cheek, and then I say, “You’ll be fine. It’s going to suck so fucking badly, but you’ve got m—friends. And Joss. We’re all going to be here for you, alright? No matter how shitty the people at school are about this, we’re all going to support you. Or, both of you, I guess. You and Joss. You understand?” He nods, jaw bumping against my shoulder. “Yeah. We, um… we should probably head inside.” “No,” I say. Every time I blink, I find myself picturing him fulfilling his dreams of suicide. I see him passed out on the floor of his bedroom, clutching an empty pill bottle. I see him tying a noose and hanging himself from the banister on the stairs of the old house. I see him cutting open his wrists, bleeding out the same way I was afraid Ben would. I see him sitting at the desk in Dad’s old office, sipping a tumbler of whiskey and then sticking the muzzle of a Glock in his mouth. But there’s a chance I’m just projecting, with that last one. “Dude, we’re late,” he says. I shake my head and say, “I don’t care. We’re staying out here until I know you’re okay. And failing that, we’re staying out here until I’m okay.” It ends up taking forty-five minutes, four soft kisses to the side of my neck, and one whispered apology, followed by a breath that sounds dangerously close to I love you. The main office secretary’s expression tells me that she doesn’t believe my claims of car trouble for an instant, but she writes us each a late pass anyway. After we’ve both stopped at our lockers, I walk Travis to his AP Spanish class, even though it makes him roll his eyes. But that’s good—it’s normal, at least, typical Travis, not something that leaves me worried, terrified, aching on my way to my last ten minutes of AP Government. No one asks me about Travis and Joss, but I can tell they’re all wondering how I’m still sober right now. There doesn’t seem to be a point in explaining to anyone that I’ve been trying to wake myself up from the nightmare that is their relationship for months now; instead, I settle for scowling a bit more than usual and trying to pretend I don’t feel everyone’s eyes on me. When I get to trial law, I nudge Travis’ arm and open my mouth to ask him how his morning has been. He silences me with a look, shakes his head slowly from side to side, and sinks low into his chair, avoiding my eyes for the rest of class. It’s probably the least reassuring thing I’ve ever seen. It isn’t until lunchtime, however, that I realize the full extent of our classmates’ reactions. People are gaping at Travis and Joss with an openness that they’ve never dared to stare at me with. At least my drug addiction sparks a sense of fear in these people, a wariness that keeps most of them silent; the pregnancy just leads to amusement, to taunting, to blatant staring and-- “Way to fuck up big time, McCall,” says some random soccer douche, clapping Travis on the shoulder and making him grit his teeth. “Didn’t know you had it in you to actually make it with a chick.” Sitting at a table about twenty feet away from us, Jack Thorne smirks and calls, “Who even knows if he can? I wouldn’t be surprised if he was so busy boning his own stepbrother that some other guy slipped in and got the job done.” Travis’ head snaps up, his eyes locking onto Jack’s. Jack sneers at him. “You sure it’s even yours?” Dozens of fights over the past few years have given me a pretty good idea of exactly when someone will reach their breaking point—it’s the skill I used last spring to figure out just what to say to get Dave to attack me, to do something to me that might make me feel anything other than lonely. But right now, that’s not how I know that everything’s about to fall apart. It’s Travis and my familiarity with his body that makes me notice the tensing of his muscles, the spasm of his clenching fists, that little hitch in his breathing like he’s already bracing himself to get hit. He makes it upright, off the bench, but I throw an arm around his waist half a second before he moves to launch himself at Jack, dragging him back a few feet and saying firmly, “No. Travis, no, you’re not going to hit him, alright?” “Did you hear what he said to me?” Travis demands, struggling against my grip. At the other table, Jack stands, saunters a little closer to us, and that’s exactly the wrong idea. I maneuver myself around so that I’m standing between them, my hands clamped over Travis’ shoulders to keep him in place and focused on me. “I did, but that doesn’t matter. You know it’s bullshit, okay? Believe me, I more than understand a desire to just punch Thorne right in the face—I’ve wanted to do it all school year, but you can’t do that without getting in trouble, alright?” “Did you hear what he said?” Travis repeats, now just sounding defeated. “I can’t let him say that sort of shit about her. I can’t let him talk about them like that.” Them. Oh. I hadn’t realized that the fetus was at a point where we were actively including it in conversation that way, like it’s a real person who should be factored in. I shake my head, more to clear it than because I disagree, and I find myself locking eyes with Joss over Travis’ shoulder. And it’s not that I want to reassure her, but I sort of get the feeling that I can’t make Travis feel better without at least trying to make her--them, I guess—feel better, too. I say, “I get it, dude, but you know it’s bullshit. Joss wouldn’t do that to you, alright? It doesn’t matter what that asshole says. You know the truth, okay? You—” There’s a sick sort of smacking noise that I belatedly realize is the sound of someone taking a hard, wide swing at the side of my head. I’ve got no idea if it’s because of the momentum of the punch, or because of the dizziness I’m feeling from my brain rattling around in my skull, but the next thing I know, I’m crumpling sideways, crashing to my knees, and then my head collides with the corner of the nearest lunch table--No, my head collides with one of the covered caster wheels of my desk chair. That doesn’t even sting that badly, not as much as the punch to the face that brought me to my knees in the first place, or the kick to my ribs that follows. I can feel the bones splintering inside my chest, an unimaginable agony rocketing outward from the point of contact. Instinctively, I try to hunch into a ball, to cover my chest to prevent any more of that pain, but Dave’s next kick just crashes into my hands, and I hear the crunch of my fingers snapping under the pressure of the kick. “Please,” I beg, even though the blood and tears are making it difficult for even me to understand what I’m saying. “D-Dave, please, stop—” “Is this all a goddamn joke to you, Garen? Do you think it’s funny to try and break my heart?” he bellows down at me. “Have you been fucking him this whole time?” I manage to make it onto my knees, crawling away with my good hand, the bad one cradled to my chest as I try to find any words that might undo what’s happening right now. But god, it hurts just to breathe, let alone speak. “I haven’t, I swear. I haven’t—touched him since even before—before we got back together. I wouldn’t—I was lying, I’m not his—Dave, I’m yours. I promise, I love you, just you, only you—” He must be able to hear the lie in my voice, because his next kick is aimed straight at my heart. I become aware of someone touching me, of panicked hands fluttering over my chest, like someone’s trying to get me to stay still. I can’t stay still, though, not until I figure out where I am and what the fuck is going on. A few seconds of blinking clears my vision enough that Nate Holliday’s horror-stricken face swims in focus above me. Something hot and sticky is smeared across my temple, like—did someone spit on me? What is going on? I press my palm to my forehead, and it comes away red. Fuck, when did I start bleeding, and why—god, why am I on the floor? There are other faces above me now, some I recognize and some I don’t, and shit, that’s right, I’m at school. I’m lying on the floor of the cafeteria. Like someone who’s weak would be doing. I try to scramble upright, but my balance is off, and it takes me another few seconds to realize that it’s because I can’t hear anything but a ringing in my ears and the ghosts of Dave’s furious words. Someone extends a hand to me, and I accept it, allowing myself to be hauled to my feet. I stagger a little, but I’m fine, I’m starting to be able to make out words. Nate is saying, “Garen, are you okay? Oh my god. We need to get you to the nurse, you hit your head against the—” “Who hit me?” I say, even though I already know. It would be hard not to know. I mean, there’s really only one person who is standing there, fist still clenched, getting fucking snarled at by Travis, who has avoided a breakdown of violence only because he’s being restrained by both Riley and John right now. They’re both talking loudly over him, trying to calm him down, but he’s shaking and thrashing and trying his damnedest to get at Jack, who is just watching him, lip curled. I take a shaky step forward, then another. I aim my finger at Jack and say, “You hit me?” “I hit you,” he mimics, taunting. I swipe at the blood that’s still trailing sticky-hot down my forehead, threatening to run into my eye. There’s only one thing I can think to say to him right now, and it comes out more like a growl than a statement. “I’m going to snap your fucking neck.” And besides the fact that they’re saving him from destroying his perfect student record, the best part about Riley and John holding Travis back? There’s nobody whose hands are free to try to stop me when I tackle Jack to the ground and knot my hand around the front of his shirt to hold him still enough that I can land a punch to his mouth. The next however many seconds pass in a flurry of fists and bruises and yells, and it’s… not as easy as I remember fighting being. For every good punch Jack gets in, I manage to make at least two, but every time his hand connects with my skin, I feel like I’m slipping in and out of consciousness. I can’t see anything, I can’t hear anything but that ringing again, and I know—I know it’s not Dave that’s hitting me, but he’s the one whose hands I feel on me. Suddenly, my back is against the cafeteria wall, and the hands holding me in place belong to Mr. Caldeway from the history department, one of the teachers doing lunch supervision today. Even I’m not stupid enough to hit a teacher—I raise my hands, palms out, and say, over and over, “I’m done. I’m sorry. I’m done, I’m done.” His mouth is moving, but I can’t hear what he’s saying, not over that incessant, overpowering ringing. I clamp my hands over my ears for a minute, to see if that might help, but his voice is still faint when I remove my hands. I just shake my head and say—why does my tongue feel so heavy, like I’m slurring my words?—“I can’t hear you. Dude, I can’t hear anything you’re—I can’t—” The world is lopsided all at once, and I pitch over sideways. I’m too heavy for Mr. Caldeway to keep me upright, but he does get a good enough hold on me that he’s able to help me sit down on the ground without me managing to crack my head open. I can still feel the blood trickling down my forehead, and I want to wipe at it, but my whole body feels disconnected from itself. I just… need to clear my head, is all. I blink. I’m still sitting on the floor, but Mr. Caldeway is gone, and Vice Principal Jacobs is there instead, and she’s saying something to me, something I can’t make out, but then, “—tell me your name? Your birthday? Today’s date? Anything?” And I know all of those answers, I really do, I’m not stupid. I know my name’s Garen Michael Anderson, I know my birthday’s March twenty-seventh, I know today’s the first of November, but my tongue feels fat and sluggish in my mouth, and I’m not sure I can manage to say any of those words. Instead, I press the heels of my hands to my closed eyelids and wait for the faded edges of my world to sharpen up a bit. I blink. There are more people in front of me now, talking to me, helping me stand up, and that’s fine. Great, even. I truly appreciate their efforts. Once satisfied that I can stand, someone turns me so that I’m facing the wall, and then—alright, those are definitely handcuffs. I’m definitely being handcuffed. I blink. I’m on a chair just inside the door of the main office, and Jack Thorne is sitting on one side of me, Travis is sitting on the other. Neither of them is wearing handcuffs; at least, I assume they’re not, because Travis is twisted sideways in his seat so that he can clasp my face between his hands. He’s speaking to me, and the words are a hell of a lot easier to make out than anything Caldeway or Jacobs said to me. “Garen? Can you hear me?” I blink, but when I open my eyes this time, I’ve stayed where I’m supposed to be. I clear my throat and say, “Yeah, I can hear you. I’m not fuckin’ deaf, dude.” “I’ve been saying your name for five minutes now, and this is the first time you’ve responded coherently. Maybe not nicely, but coherently, for sure,” he says. His hands aren’t really on my face, per se; his palms are settled on the sides of my neck, his thumbs stroking lightly over my jawline. It’s the sort of gesture that might feel nice, if any part of my body felt nice right now. I shrug him off and say, “Okay, so. Main office. My head feels like somebody backed my Ferrari over it. And I’m not terribly sure how I got here. What did I do this time?” “You don’t even remember?” Jack snaps. I give a noncommittal shrug, and he huffs over that for a minute before answering, “You bashed your head against a lunch table because you got in the middle of a fight that was none of your business. McCall and me got into it and—” “‘McCall and I’,” Travis quietly corrects. Jack leans around me to accuse, “See, shit like that is why nobody likes you.” “Funny,” Travis says blandly. “You’re always saying that nobody likes me because I like guys.” “I like you because you like guys,” I say, sliding my boot toe up the bottom of the leg of his jeans. He kicks me away, perhaps a bit more fiercely than necessary. “Really, Garen? You’ve got a fucking concussion, and you’re still trying to get in my pants? That’s how you’ve chosen to prioritize this situation?” “I can’t help it. Most people have ‘fight or flight’ instincts, but I’ve got ‘fight or fuck.’ Flirting with you is my default response to stressful situations,” I whine, because right now, my forehead feels like it’s pulsating, and it’s getting increasingly difficult to see out of my left eye, which feels like it might be blackened. I just need a distraction, and it seems like trying to engage Jack in conversation will just get me hit again, so I reach for Travis. Considering my hands are still cuffed behind my back, I don’t make it very far. I frown. “Why am I the only one in cuffs?” “Because you’re the only one who yelled, ‘I’m going to snap your fuckin’ neck’ in the middle of the lunch room?” Jack suggests, though he falls quickly silent when I turn to glower at him. “You were really out of it in the cafeteria, and I think they were worried that you might hurt yourself or somebody else if they didn’t restrain you somehow. Also, ‘school security’ is limited to a rent-a-cop named Ron, so, I think he only had the one pair,” Travis says. I try to leer at him, but the effect is probably ruined by the blood all over my face. “It’s a shame this fight didn’t happen in my bedroom. I’ve got some he could borrow.” Travis just rolls his eyes. I test the strength of the cuffs and find myself frowning once more. “These pieces of shit are weak. Hang on.” I stand up—I wobble a little, but remain upright—and trot over to the currently vacant secretary’s desk. There’s an epic assortment of crap all over it, including—perfect. I turn my back to the desk and dig a paper clip out of a tiny ceramic frog designed to hold office supplies. The clip is a little thicker than most, slightly more solid, which is good; less likely to break in the middle of use. “Do you really expect to be able to pick the lock on those?” Travis asks dubiously. Jack, however, is silently intrigued. I shrug. “If I can pick my way out of the police-issue cuffs I’ve got at home, I’m pretty sure I can handle Ron the Rent-A-Cop’s set.” “Charming. Do I even want to know how you got police handcuffs?” “I don’t remember,” I lie, even though I totally remember; I stole them off a Savannah cop who was trying to arrest Jamie for public intoxication when we were sixteen, right before we scaled a six-foot-tall stone wall, cut through an outdoor wedding, and sprinted two and a half miles back to the Goldwyn family estate. It had been a busy summer. Travis leans back in his seat, stretching his arm across the back of the one I’d been sitting in. “I hope you realize that they’re in Principal Hammond’s office right now, deciding how best to punish us all. It’s not like they’re going to leave you in those for hours.” “It’s the principle of the matter. They’ve insulted my honor by believing I can be contained by such a cheap-ass, flimsy pair of cuffs. It’s embarrassing,” I say. I dig the flattened paper clip into the cuffs and start to work it through the lock, humming under my breath about how I can’t be tamed.

“I think the embarrassing thing is that you’re singing a Miley Cyrus song while you get out of them,” Jack grunts.

“The embarrassing thing is that both of you know a Miley Cyrus song in the first place,” Travis says. The left cuff pops open, and I let out a triumphant sort of aha! before setting to work on the right cuff, which is a lot easier, given that I can work on it in front of myself. I don’t even need to look at it; instead, I take my first solid look at Jack. The skin around his eye is swollen and has the beginning of a nasty bruise. His lower lip is split open, and it looks like he had a busted nose earlier, because there are smears of dried blood on his upper lip. I hitch my chin at him. “I do that?” “Yeah, you did that, you asshole,” he snaps. “You do this?” I ask now, flicking my gaze upward to indicate the gash on my forehead. His scowl is replaced by a smirk. “Yeah, I did that.” “In that case, I’m not sorry, and I wish I’d hit you harder—got it! Fuck you, cuffs,” I exclaim as the second bracelet falls open. I toss the paper clip onto the floor behind the desk and stuff the cuffs deep into the side of my boot, because if I had to suffer the indignity of wearing those now, I fully intend to get some enjoyment out of someone else wearing them later. I bet Ben would be totally into it, if we hadn’t broken up. Maybe I can convince him anyway. I slip my phone out of my pocket and send him a text that says, what are your thoughts on handcuffs? The door to Principal Hammond’s office swings open, and he, Vice Principal Jacobs, Ron the Rent-a-Cop, and Mr. Caldeway all file out. Travis jabs an elbow into my ribs with a pointed glance at my phone. I raise my eyebrows at him, then turn my attention to the response from Ben that has just arrived in my inbox. I’m thinking it’s a shame you didn’t text me this a week ago, when we were still sleeping together. Where did you get handcuffs? “First thing’s first. Ron, if you could—” Vice Principal Jacobs breaks off, frowning down at my wrists. “Garen, what happened to the handcuffs?” “I don’t remember any handcuffs,” I say loftily. “I don’t even remember walking up the stairs to get here, to be honest.” Her voice is a little more stern when she replies, “Garen, you were wearing handcuffs. Where are they?” “That’s outrageous, VP Jacobs. What kind of school administrator would handcuff a student who’s got what feels like a grade two concussion and a severe forehead contusion? Certainly not one who valued her job, I’d wager. So, what do you say to the idea of you not asking me where these handcuffs you allegedly used on me went, and in return, I won’t call my lawyer—oh, sorry, my mom and tell her that I was dragged out of the lunch room and physically restrained minutes after sustaining a traumatic brain injury?” I say, tapping out a reply to Ben’s text. got jumped defending the virtue of t’s bitchy gf, now have a concussion & am bleeding everywhere, might be getting arrested? idk, whole situation is v. weird. point is, there are stolen handcuffs in my boot right now. do i get to cuff you to your bed & nail you or not? The response is immediate. Not. Are you okay? Will I get a better explanation of these events if I text Travis for details? I slip my phone back into my pocket and elbow Travis. “You should text Ben. He’s not being any fun, but he wants to know—” “You should not text anyone,” Principal Hammond warns. “Cell phones are forbidden during school hours.” “Well, we’re all getting suspended anyway, right? So, what does it matter if we use them now?” I say. My knuckles are sore from bashing them against Jack’s jaw, but that doesn’t stop me from clenching my hands into fists in the pockets of my jeans. Please say it’s suspension. Please, please, please don’t expel me again. Principal Hammond’s frown creases even deeper into his face. “You’re not being suspended, Garen.” “We’re not?” Jack says hopefully, but he is met with a glower. “Oh, you most definitely are, Mr. Thorne, as is Mr. McCall over here,” Vice Principal Jacobs. “Mr. Caldeway has told us the particulars of the incident in the cafeteria, and it’s been made abundantly clear that they two of you were the ones to initiate it.” “How did I initiate it?” Travis asks, stunned. “Jack punched Garen in the head when his back was turned. He could have—” Jacobs holds up a hand, and he falls silent, like a good little valedictorian-to-be. “If you had remained in your seat to begin with, I doubt this fight ever would have gotten physical. Both of you will be suspended until Monday morning for your involvement with the fight.” “Am I suspended, too?” I ask, even though she’s already said I’m not. I just want to make sure. She shakes her head. I hesitate, then bump it up a grade. “Am I expelled?” Another head shake. I decide to bump it down a few levels. “Am I getting rewarded for my valor and strength of character? Do I get a present? Can I have cake?” A third, slightly more annoyed head shake, and if I’m not getting treats, this game isn’t fun anymore. “What do I get?” “Bed rest, hopefully, though your miraculously undiagnosed ADHD might make that difficult for you,” Principal Hammond grumbles. When his words are met with a blank stare, he clarifies, “We’re asking that you also remain at home until Monday morning, but your time off from school will be logged as a necessary, excused medical absence, not a suspension. Mr. Caldeway here has informed us that you were attempting to intercede in the conflict between Mr. Thorne and Mr. McCall when you received a harsh blow to the head. Given the lack of responsiveness following the incident, the tinnitus you claimed to be experiencing, and the fact that you say you have no memory of coming up here afterward, it’s clear that you’ve got a concussion—” I slouch down in my seat so that I can kick my feet up onto the edge of the secretary’s desk. “I know, I already said that a few minutes ago. For the record, I’m pretty sure you’re required to give me some sort of medical attention right now.” The frown now has a hint of concern behind it. “Garen, you’ve already received medical attention. When we first brought you upstairs, we asked the school nurse to look you over, clean the cut on your forehead, and check to see if you should be brought to the hospital. You were responding fine at the time.” I don’t know how I could have been responding fine, if I can’t remember the conversation now, but I don’t voice that opinion. “You were also offered something that might help with the pain, but—” “I wouldn’t let them give you anything,” Travis says quietly. “It didn’t seem like a good idea. Painkillers weren’t the thing you really went to the LRC for, but I… remember. You know?” He means he remembers watching me get high out of my mind on Vicodin before I switched to coke. It seems like now would be a bad time to take his hand, or kiss him on the cheek, so I settle for nudging his elbow with mine and murmuring, “Thanks.” He nods. “We’ll be making a call home to each of your parents about this. Ron will escort you all to your lockers to gather your belongings; I’d recommend taking whatever you think you might need for the next few days, because after you leave this building, you will not be permitted back on campus until Monday morning. Is that understood?” Principal Hammond demands. We all nod. “Garen, once you’ve gone to your locker, I’d like you to return here. I know you have your own vehicle here, but there’s no way I can let you drive yourself home in this condition. I’ll call your father at work and have—” “I can drive him home,” Travis interrupts, standing. “Bill’s office is almost an hour away from here. It just makes more sense for me to drop him at his house on my way to mine.” There is a brief silence, but eventually, Vice Principal Jacobs nods, and we are excused. Ron the Rent-a-Cop keeps shooting me baleful glances, like he’s contemplating strong-arming me into giving him the missing cuffs. I return with a genial smile, but no comment. Once I’ve collected my backpack and most of my schoolbooks from my locker, I wander down the hall to meet Travis, who has taken it upon himself to shove literally any textbook or notebook he might ever need into his backpack, like being super prepared for makeup work will do something to lessen the sting of suspension. “I need your keys,” he says, holding his hand out. I raise my eyebrows. He rolls his eyes and wiggles his fingers, indicating a desire for me to hurry up. “Come on, I’ll drive us to your place in the Ferrari. It’s not like you haven’t let me drive it before now.” I opt not to point out that he’s the only other person I’ve ever let drive the Testarossa. And I opt not to think too much about the fact that I don’t even flinch when passing him the keys to my baby. The drive back to the house is silent and slow; like Ben, Travis actually interprets speed limits as limits, not guidelines. It’s a little before one thirty when we pull into my driveway. He cuts the engine and hands me the keys, but comes around to the passenger side to help me out of the car, like he’s my prom date or something. I allow myself to be escorted up the front steps, let into my own house, and led inside. “Need any help getting down to your room?” he asks. I shake my head, but he follows me anyway, bracing a hand between my shoulder blades the whole way downstairs. Once there, I flop back onto my unmade bed, and Travis sits down on the edge of it. I watch as he carefully unlaces my boots and slips them off, setting them down next to my nightstand. He lifts the mess of blankets and shoves my legs under it—fucking terrible bedside manner on this kid—before dropping the blankets back on top of me. “I’m going to head back to school for my car, alright? Text me if you start to feel worse, and I can swing by and check on you.” I yawn, then ask, “How are you going to get to school?” He shrugs. “Walk. It’s really not a big deal, I used to do it all the time, before I got my license.” He leans forward to kiss my cheek, and I find myself once again fighting the urge to turn into it and capture his mouth with mine. “I’ll see you around, okay?” “You don’t have to,” I blurt out, and he pauses by the door. “I mean… you can stay for a while, if you want. And when my dad gets home from work, he could drive you back to school to get your car. So you don’t have to walk, or whatever.” He’s silent for a long moment before he says, “Okay, I guess. You should rest, though. See if you can sleep.” I frown. “Doesn’t sleeping with a concussion just kill you? Is this you, trying to off me so I’ll stop hitting on you all the time?” He rolls his eyes. “I don’t—no, I’m not even going to touch that one. But you can sleep with a concussion as long as someone wakes you every two hours to make sure you can return easily to coherency.” “Oh,” I say. “I thought—” “Go to sleep, Garen.” Grumbling, I roll onto my side and close my eyes. It’s nearly three o’clock when I open them again, and it is not at my own insistence. Travis is standing next to the bed, shaking my shoulder gently. “Hey. You still alive?” “You’re not going to be, if you keep fuckin’ shaking me, McCall,” I bite out. He laughs. “Charming as ever, I see. Alright. Go back to sleep.” The same process repeats sometime around five o’clock, and again at seven. I have barely had time to drift off again after this latest attempt when my bedroom door edges open and Dad pokes his head in, eyes flashing around the room until they land on Travis. I’m expecting him to address me, but he must think I’m still sleeping, because he whispers, “I got your message. Can we talk upstairs?” “Yeah, we—of course,” Travis says, nodding sharply. He snatches up the backpack he had abandoned by my desk, then pauses by the edge of my bed. I wonder if he’s thinking about giving me another of those tiny kisses that have become so common today, but if he’s hesitating because my dad is right there. I wish he’d do it anyway, even if Dad would think it was weird, or inappropriate, or dumb. He doesn’t. Instead, he brushes the tips of his fingers across my elbow and says quietly, “I’ll text you later, G.” They both walk out.

52 days sober

It turns out that a year of getting kicked out of my home, going AWOL for four months, developing a raging drug addiction, getting myself beaten nearly to death, spending two months in rehab, and having a pretty public relapse all sets the bar kind of high for what constitutes a “Garen emergency.” Over the next few days, I learn that getting into a fistfight that leaves me with a mild concussion and two and a half days off from school barely even ranks. Jamie doesn’t offer to skip a few days of classes and take the train in to keep me company. Ben and Alex both call to make sure I’m feeling better, but refuse to help me feel better by bringing me cake. Travis hasn’t texted me like he said he would, but it’s possible that that’s just because “Hey, thanks for getting your brain battered around the inside of your skull defending the virtue of the mother of my unborn child” is such an awkward, wordy sort of message. All things considered, I’m surprised when, a few hours after school would usually be getting out on Friday, Dad calls downstairs, “Garen, you’ve got a friend here to see you. Mind if I send him down?” I thought my dad learned a while ago that yelling down for me is pretty pointless; the room is sound-proofed, so I can only hear him when I’ve left the door open, which is a rare occurrence. Still, it’s open now, which means he can hear my mournful reply, “I have no friends. I’ve been abandoned by everyone I know, forsaken in my hour of need. Being suspended in Lakewood is way less fun than it was when I was suspended in the dorms at boarding school, and people keep posting links to some video of the fight on my facebook wall, and my head hurts, and no one will come out and play with me. So, tell whoever’s up there to go eat a dick, because I don’t need sympathy visits.” “No man is an island, kid.” “This man is an island,” I protest. “This man is also not a kid, what the fuck, Dad.” There’s a noise that might be a frustrated sigh, then I hear him say to someone, “You can go right down.” The offer is followed by the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and then the door swings a little wider. Nate Holliday steps uncertainly over the threshold. His eyes are scanning the room, searching for me, and I remain perfectly still, sprawled out on the couch, waiting for him to make his way over to me. When his eyes finally land on me, it’s with a jolt of surprise and a hand clapped to his heart. “Jesus Christ. I didn’t see you there.” “I figured as much. Hi. What are you doing here?” I ask. He swings his bag off his shoulder and digs into it, surfacing with a stack of papers and a hesitant smile. “I brought your makeup work? I hope that’s okay. It probably seems intrusive, or something, but midterms are coming up, and it seemed like it’d be a bad idea to fall behind now. You’ve mentioned before that Ms. Markland is one of your teachers, so I asked her to find out the rest of your schedule so I could talk to your teachers.” I accept the papers and thumb through the stack. There are five paper-clipped bundles of homework, one for each of my regular classes; at the bottom of the stack, Jeff has sent along the latest issue of Alternative Press with a sticky note that reads, Feel better soon. -Jeff. P.S. As a teacher, I refused to watch the video of the fight that one of my juniors tried to show me. But if I had watched it, I’d tell you that you kicked that kid’s ass, man. Grinning, I get up to stick the note to my amp in the corner, then gesture for Nate to sit. He drops immediately onto the couch, and I sit back down next to him, turned sideways and hugging my knees to my chest, chin resting atop them. “Thanks for bringing that by. Sorry I missed the last two rehearsals,” I say, widening my eyes a little at him. I’m hoping for innocent and apologetic, but failing that, I’m hoping that he’ll be distracted enough by the dark green irises to not be mad at me for bailing on rehearsals now that we’re less than a month away from opening night. “Don’t be sorry. All the rest of us care about is you getting better,” he says, fiddling with the buttons of the bright yellow cardigan he’s wearing. He pauses, then amends with a sly smile, “Alright, all we care about is that, and making sure the crew girls doing stage makeup for the performances can somehow manage to cover up that hideous cut on your forehead. Because that is appalling, and I just don’t know how anyone’s going to look at you during ‘Sandra Dee’ if you look like that.” I let out a bark of surprised laughter at that. “And here I thought you were showing some concern for me as my director.” “I thought I was showing some concern for you as your friend,” he says, quirking an eyebrow. I smile, but don’t reply, because the truth is that it’s still so hard for me to consider all of these people my friends. Suddenly, though, a thought strikes me, and I find myself reaching for his hand. “Hey, dude. You might actually be the perfect person to help me with something I’m working on. You know, if you don’t mind doing me a favor?” “What sort of favor?” he asks, not lifting his eyes from my hand on his. “Well, this—I mean, this sounds sort of dumb, but I’m right in the middle of the whole college application process. My dad made me send in all my paperwork already, but because I’m applying to a bunch of music programs, I have a whole series of auditions this December. Jeff—that’s the music teacher, the one I TA for? He’s helping me pick out the classic guitar pieces I’m going to use for any instrumental auditions, but two of the places I’m applying to aren’t—well, they’re not really music programs, not exactly. They’re musical theater.” That’s finally enough to draw Nate’s eyes back to my face. He looks surprised, but pleased. “You’re thinking of studying musical theater?” I shrug. “I might? I don’t know. It all depends which schools I get into—I’ve got good grades and standardized test scores, but my uh, my disciplinary record is… extensive. And I did get expelled last spring. Neither of those things is likely to endear me to an admissions committee. But I think if I kick ass on my audition and interview, I can still get into somewhere good. The musical theater auditions, though—” “—require musical theater pieces, yes. Or… what was the phrase you used?” he wonders, the corner of his mouth twitching up into a smirk. “Oh, that’s right. ‘Broadway bullshit.’” “You’re never going to get over that, are you?” I ask, and he shakes his head. I grin. “Well, yeah. Joke’s on me, because I’m required to audition with two musical theater pieces, in differing styles. And—like, the stuff we’ve done in Grease is really all I know, and I don’t think that’s enough, not by a long shot. So, I was wondering if maybe you could help me pick out a few numbers, maybe coach me through making it awesome? You know. Direct me.” He’s going to say yes. I knew he would before I even asked, but it probably would have been considered tactless to say, hey, put your raging crush on me to good use and help me get into college. I’m not expecting any word other than yes—maybe definitely, if he’s feeling really eager—so it’s a bit of a kick to the nuts when he cocks his head to the side and says, “As your friend, I suppose I could do it. But as my friend, there’s something I wonder if you might do for me.” “Blackmail and bribery. Knew there was a reason I liked you,” I say, though my stomach has twisted itself into a few knots by now. Every guy who has ever asked me for a favor has wanted sex as a payment, and I—it’s not that I wouldn’t fuck Nate. He’s cute enough, and I bet he’d be a good time, even if he is a helpless virgin. But that’s the sort of decision I want to be mine to make, not part of a transaction. I swallow, hoping my smile hasn’t slipped off my face. “What do you want from me?” Now that he has my attention, he seems a little embarrassed. “I, um… you’re the only other gay boy I know.” “Gay man,” I correct, definitely not feeling any better about this situation. “And that’s not true, you know Travis.” “Travis doesn’t count, he’s dating Joss,” Nate says, making a face. “And this sort of favor—it’s not really something I’d be comfortable asking Travis. It’s just, I know you a little bit better, and you’re single—you’re not dating that Ben guy anymore, and—” I interrupt, “Are you trying to solicit sex in return for helping me with my audition pieces?” He blinks at me. I blink back. Slowly, his eyebrows ascend towards his hairline, leaving him with a spectacularly unimpressed look on his face. “No,” he says, pronouncing the word very carefully, “I was actually trying to ask you if you might consider going to my junior ring dance with me.” “I’d rather stick my balls in a mousetrap,” I say without thinking. His face flares, and I hastily amend, “Not because—shit, no, that wasn’t a comment about you. Just—school-sponsored social functions like that aren’t really my thing? Like, at all. I mean, I’d assume they’re not. I’ve never actually gone to a school dance before. And I know it’s my fifth year of high school, but I’d sort of been hoping to maintain that streak.” “Oh,” he says, ducking his head. “Okay. That’s fine, I just thought I’d ask.” There’s a polite but completely forced smile on his lips, and it occurs to me—probably a little bit too late—that retarded school dances are exactly the sort of shit someone like Nate Holliday probably cares about. They’re not always something to joke about. And maybe he thinks asking me to this dance was as important as me asking him to help me get into my music programs. I sigh and scrub my hands over my face, wincing a little when they make contact with the cut on my forehead. “When’s the dance?” “Two weeks from today,” he says, cautiously hopeful. “And—” “Would I have to wear a suit?” “Yes,” he says, hopefulness now replaced by an unequivocal determination. Apparently, fashion is not something that is up for debate. “You would have to wear a suit—a nice one—and a tie. You would have to tuck your shirt in, like a real adult. And you would have to wear different shoes.” I narrow my eyes. “The shoes aren’t an option. These are the only pair I own.” He makes a distressed noise in his throat. “I’ll shine them, alright? I went to three years of military school, I can shine shoes like a fucking boss.” “Only if you use polish,” he demands. “I swear to god, Garen, if you spit-shine your boots—” “I’ll use shoe polish. Jesus Christ, dude, you watch too many movies. I do actually know how to operate in the real world,” I say. “Are there any other awful requirements I would have to meet?” “You would have to get me a boutonniere. You’d have to ride to school in the limo with the rest of us. You’d have to dance with me and my friends, even if you don’t like to dance—” “I like to dance just fine,” I grumble, though I can only assume that the sort of pre-sex grinding I tend to do in nightclubs isn’t really ‘school-appropriate.’ Whatever. I’m sure he won’t object once my hands are on him. Nate ignores me and finishes, “And lastly, you would have to start the night by meeting up with everyone at my house, smiling in the pictures, and keeping all of your bitching to an absolute minimum.” It’s that last little comment that actually tricks me into laughing. Bossiness is actually sort of a charming look for Nate, so I heave a sigh and say, “Fine. I’ll go. How much are the tickets?” “Forty dollars each. I have to buy them in homeroom. And sign you up as my date, because you’re not a junior. You—what are you doing?” he asks, frowning at me. I roll my eyes and pass him the four twenty-dollar bills I’ve just extracted from my wallet. “Giving you money for the tickets, you idiot. If this is the only high school dance I ever attend—and trust me, it will be—then I might as well do it right.” A faint blush is rising in his cheeks. He stares down at the money for nearly a full minute before he tucks the bills into the pocket of his cardigan and says, “Thank you. That’s—sweet. Thank you.” I shrug it off and am rewarded with another searching glance. “Hopefully, your cut will have healed by then. Two weeks should be fine, right? That’ll be enough time?” “Yeah, it should be fine. I heal pretty quickly, so my eye will be back to normal by then, and… I dunno, the cut will still be there, but it won’t be, you know, bruised and foul-looking anymore,” I say. His eyes are still darting all over my face. Black eye, to forehead cut, to the faint bruise on my cheekbone, back to black eye. I snort. “For fuck’s sake, Nate, it’s okay to blink, you know.” He slams his eyes shut, opens them, and stares wildly around the room, attempting to find something to focus on, other than my bruised and battered face. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to stare, I promise. It’s just—you look really terrible right now.” I make an indignant noise, and he hastens to correct, “I meant the cut and the black eye! Not you you. You’re still gorgeous, I mean, you’re always gorgeous, it’s just—holy mother of God, why am I still talking right now?” I grin and admit, “I’m kind of enjoying it. Next, you can talk about how hot it was to watch my biceps flex while I was punching Jack Thorne in the face.” “You’re unbelievable,” Nate mutters, turning an impressive shade of red. I shrug. “Glad you think so.” He doesn’t say anything back, though he does sneak another look at the cut on my forehead. I nudge his knee with my toe and say, “Nate, I’m fine. Sure, this looks kinda gross, but it’s nothing compared to what happened to me last spring.” “Well, maybe if I’d seen that, I’d have a higher threshold for this sort of thing,” he says, “but as it is, I’m—” “Do you want to?” I interrupt. His brow creases, and I clarify, “Do you want to see? I—alright, this makes me sound like a psychopath, but I have pictures. My mom has me keep a binder full of the information related to… I dunno, all the shitty things that happen to me. Pictures, hospital records, a copy of the restraining order I’ve got against my ex. She says it makes sense to have duplicates of everything, just in case I need them for legal purposes. And—I mean, you said it might help recalibrate the scale of what I really consider an injury. So. I mean, you don’t have to. I’m not going to make you look at pictures of me in the hospital, that would be totally fucked up. But if you—” He cuts me off with a quick nod. “No, I um… I think that might help, actually? Because, I’m sorry, but your face right now is just… it looks awful, and maybe if I knew that it’s not as bad as it seems, at least to you, then I’d feel less worried about you.” I laugh and stand to retrieve the binder from my desk drawer. “You don’t need to be worried, dude. The damage is already done. And I’ve been to the doctor, he says I’ll be back to normal in a couple days, once the headaches wear off completely. Well, he thinks I should probably try to avoid getting any more concussions, because this is my second one this year, but, you know, whatever. Here.” I drop the binder on his lap, mostly because I’m worried about him noticing the way my hands are shaking if I try to pass it to him with any more grace than that. “Open that when you’re ready.” He nods, but it takes an additional fifteen seconds before he flips open the cover. It is immediately slammed shut again. “Oh my god.” It’s not really funny, but I laugh anyway, then harder then he cracks it open for another peek. He’s breathing heavily through his nose, like he’s trying not to be sick. Like he needs to calm himself down. “What happened to you?” “You mean, what injuries did I get? Or how did I get them?” I ask. He doesn’t reply, so I opt to answer both. “Broken nose, couple of broken ribs. First concussion. And I got them in a fight with the guy I was dating at the time. He won, obviously.” “So, you um—” Nate falters, finally glancing up from the binder to meet my eyes. “He abused you?” I shrug. “I don’t really like that word.” Thankfully, he lets me leave it at that. I flip to the next set of pictures, four shots of my face and torso at different angles. “When this happened, I was about five months younger than you are now. David—that’s my ex—was eighteen, maybe a couple months shy of it. We broke up a few months after this happened.” I page forward until I reach the next catastrophe, at which I can’t hold back a wry smile. “This is what happened last spring, when I got back together with him.” “The same guy?” Nate says, disbelief dripping from his words. “The same guy,” I confirm. “But, hey—” I flip ahead to the copy of the restraining order, “—I learned my lesson eventually, right? So, believe me when I tell you that this—” I gesture to my face, “—isn’t nearly as bad as it looks. Not to someone who’s dealt with all of that.” He shakes his head and continues to thumb through more pictures of me after the fight, then some of me immediately after entering rehab. Those had been Doc Howard’s idea, not Mom’s. Apparently, a bunch of photos of me at my lowest point were supposed to serve as a reminder of how far I’ve come. Mostly, they just creep me out; I don’t like seeing myself with choppy, dyed black hair. I don’t like seeing myself paler than a corpse with heavy circles under my eyes. I don’t like seeing my weight down to one forty of flesh and bone from its usual one seventy of muscle. Without waiting for Nate’s permission, I flip past those to the last section. “Oh. Those are nothing important, they’re not even of me. Just the car after it got vandalized, but you already—” “Garen,” he says suddenly, voice sharp. My brow creases. “Yeah?” “Garen,” he repeats. I wonder if I’m supposed to say yeah again, or if we can cut off the back-and-forth bullshit now. But then Nate begins frantically digging through his bag, finally surfacing with the gigantic notebook where I know he keeps all of his Grease notes. “Do you remember when I had everyone write out their other extracurriculars so that I could be sure I wasn’t scheduling important rehearsals for days when people wouldn’t even be present?” I nod, and he slaps a piece of paper down on my knee. I read aloud, “Spanish Club. Um. Alright? I’m not in—” “I know you’re not in Spanish Club,” he snaps. “Gabe Alberti is.” “Cool?” I say, because I don’t give a shit about Gabe Alberti or what clubs he’s in sounds like it’d probably be considered rude. Besides, his name is right at the top of the paper, so I don’t really need to be told this. But then Nate holds Gabe’s paper up next to one of the photographs of the graffiti on the hood of my Ferrari, and my breath catches in my throat. Because the handwriting that says Gabe Alberti - Spanish Club is identical to the handwriting that spells out cokehead and go back to rehab, you still need it and have fun getting AIDS. I spend several minutes staring back and forth between the papers, trying to find each of the letters on both the club paper and the pictures of the graffiti. There are a few letters on the car that I can’t make a comparison, but there are enough for me to be certain that Gabe is the one who did it. Or. One of the ones, I guess. I flip to the last picture in the set, the one with the different handwriting, and point wordlessly to it. Nate hesitates—that makes sense. We both know whose handwriting will match up with it—I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier—and we both know that unlike Gabe, she’s actually Nate’s friend. We both know how severely the shit is going to hit the fan once we hold these papers up next to each other. Slowly, Nate pages through his binder until he finds the paper that reads, in neatly curled handwriting, Josslyn Pryce. Spanish Club. National Honor Society. Yearbook Staff Photographer. I set it down on the opposite page of my binder so that I can compare it, letter by letter, until I have matched up everything but the letter ‘d’ in the phrase, is your little brother good in bed? It’s exactly the same; she didn’t even try to disguise her handwriting, not at all. “Garen,” Nate says softly, for what feels like the nine hundredth time tonight. I shake my head and force a smile. “It’s—I mean, I know I’m new to the club. And I know most of you guys don’t really like me. But—” “That’s not true,” he snaps. “We like you. I like you. The only people who don’t are—I can’t believe they did this, honestly. I’ve known them for years, and they’ve never done anything like this before, not that I can think of. It’s insane.” I shrug and murmur, “It’s fine.” It’s really not.55 days sober

Part of me had hoped that three days might be enough to calm me down, but the moment I walk into rehearsal on Monday, I know that’s not the case. Gabe is lounging in the front row, shooting the shit with Riley with his feet kicked up; Joss is talking to Miranda and sitting on Travis’ lap, though he’s distracted with leaning around her to highlight his case notes for our trial law competition. My rage has iced over by now—I’m not feeling as white-hot and furious as I did on Friday night, but that’s probably worse. Any time something bad happens to me and I end up smiling, things go very, very badly for the other people involved. The grin stretched across my face right now is nothing short of painful. “Hey, Alberti,” I call, striding down the aisle towards the others. He spares me a glare, and I beckon to him. “Come on back here for a second, buddy. I need to talk to you about something.” “About what?” he asks warily, but he stands anyway and wanders in my direction. I fling myself into the empty seat next to Travis and Joss. He opens his mouth to say hello to me, but I speak over him, “Hey, Josslyn. You might want to toss some of that attention over here for a minute, because this concerns you, too.” “Very little about you concerns me,” she says with a tight smile. “I think you’re going to change your mind about that in a couple of seconds, because guess what, Joss. I’ve got a game I want to play with you two, because I just like you both that fucking much,” I say. “I don’t want to—” “Cool!” I say brightly, flipping open the folder in my hand and extracting two sheets of white computer paper. I pass one to each of them, then a permanent marker. “So, I’m going to read you each some words and phrases, and you’re going to write them down. Gabe, why don’t we start with you?” He doesn’t move. “Your first word is ‘faggot.’” The rest of drama club has begun to filter over to join us, perhaps alarmed by the way I bite out the slur. Gabe is frozen, which I can only assume means he understands where this is going. Next to me, underneath his psychotic bitch of a girlfriend, Travis says, “G, what’s going—” “Your next word is ‘cokehead,’” I say. “And then after that, I want you to write ‘have fun getting AIDS.’” Riley reaches out and gives my shoulder a soft punch. “Dude, I don’t get what’s going on.” “I just want him to write a few words. On the paper, that is, not on the hood of my car, where he wrote them last time,” I say. Annabelle inhales sharply. Gabe still hasn’t moved. I reach back into my folder and extract all but two of the remaining papers, passing them to him one by one. “This is a copy of your extracurricular list, in your handwriting. Which means that this picture—” faggot, “—and this picture—” go back to rehab, you still need it, “—and this one, and this one, and this one—” cokehead, smoke this, Anderson, have fun getting AIDS, “—are all your little love notes for me, in your handwriting.” “Oh my god,” Miranda whispers, taking the photos from Gabe’s hands and paging through them, comparing them to the club paper, while Christine, John, and Annabelle crowd in around her. Riley remains at my side, looking warily between Joss and myself—he must realize why I involved Joss with this, too. “For being such a great sport in this game of ours, here’s your prize,” I say, digging a stapled packet of papers out of my backpack and shoving them into Gabe’s hands. “Those are copies of the paperwork for all the bodywork I had to have done to the Ferrari because of what you did to it. You know, replacing all the lights, fixing the side mirror, fixing the strakes—god, that was an expensive one. Word of advice? If you’re going to vandalize a car, you might not want to vandalize one that’s so expensive to fix. Or so old. Did you know that it’s impossible to color-match a twenty-year-old car like that? The guys at the shop had to repaint the entire vehicle because they couldn’t just do the hood of it without having the whole thing look mismatched. You’re holding a stack of bills for ten thousand dollars in car repairs, you stupid fuck. And since you’re not me, and therefore probably can’t afford that much—” I snatch one last item from my bag and flick it towards him, “—that’s my mom’s card. She’s my lawyer, and she can’t wait to talk to you, dude.” Gabe is reeling from the that information; I can practically see the dollar signs burning holes in his skin. Truth be told, the damages have already been paid for by my insurance company, and I doubt Gabe will actually have to pay anything. But I feel a special sort of schadenfreude at the idea of my mom tearing him a new asshole over the phone. She’ll probably make him cry. He sort of looks like he’s going to cry right now; maybe that’s why he crumples up the papers in his hands and bolts for the auditorium doors. No matter—I’ve got a hell of a lot more discomfort to spread around here. I turn to face Joss, flashing her a wry smile. “I’m betting you already know what Santa’s got in his bag of toys for you, huh?” “I didn’t do anything,” she says, voice so blank I almost believe her. “Gabe dented your car. He smashed out the lights. He keyed it. He took off the mirror. He wrote all the graffiti.” I slip the last photograph from the folder and hold it up. “No. Not all of it.” She doesn’t take the paper. I don’t expect her to. I don’t expect Travis to take it either, but he does. Takes it and stares at it, eyes so wide I can see the whites all the way around his blue irises. Joss touches his wrist and says, “Travis, it’s not like th—” “This is your handwriting,” he says flatly. “This—I recognize it, Joss, this is your handwriting. Don’t lie to me, not about this.” “Not about him, you mean,” she snaps. “God, our entire fucking relationship is just all about Garen, isn’t it?” It’s like she’s got no idea how badly she’s fucking up everything for herself right now. I don’t even need to say anything, I just need to sit here and watch her dig herself deeper and deeper into this mess. “Get off of me,” he orders. When she doesn’t move, he scoops her off his lap and dumps her into the seat on his other side so that he can stand up. That accomplished, he jabs a finger at the words in the picture and says, “This? This is definitely about me, not Garen. Is your little brother good in bed? What the fuck is wrong with you, Josslyn? I haven’t acted this way about any of the ex-boyfriends you’ve told me about. Not Jesse, or Brian, or Austin, or Tyler. None of them. I’ve got a grand total of two exes. You pretend Ben doesn’t exist, even though he’s one of my best friends—he should think of himself as lucky for that, though, considering the way you act around Garen.” I keep expecting Joss to start crying, like almost any other girl I know would be doing right now, but she just… doesn’t. She stares back at him with more than a little bit of anger, but absolutely no remorse for what she’s done, or fear that Travis is going to break up with her. I guess that makes sense—the odds of him actually dumping his pregnant girlfriend are pretty much nonexistent. Still, I’m a little surprised that she actually starts inspecting her nails, casual as can fucking be, and says, “I’ve got no problem with Ben. Just Garen.” “Why?” he demands, and her eyes snap back to his face. “Because you got over Ben. And forgive me, but I’m just not a fan of the fact that every time I see you look at this piece of trash over here, it becomes increasingly clear to me that you’re never going to get over him,” she says. Travis actually takes a small step backwards, as though the idea of never getting over me is enough to shake him in ways he can’t yet define. The movement is just enough to knock the back of his knees against the side of my thigh, and I instinctively put a hand to his hip to steady him. It’s probably the worst thing I could have done, but before I can retract my hand, Joss is laughing and gesturing to the touch. “See? You two can’t keep your hands off each other for a fucking day. How’s that supposed to make me feel, Travis? Seriously, how can you possibly expect me to be cool with the fact that the guy I’m having a baby with is still not over his ex-boyfriend?” Travis takes a sudden step forward and braces his hands on the arms of her chair, the better to lean down just enough to say, in a quiet, dangerous voice, “So let’s make a deal, sweetheart. You don’t touch his car, his guitar, his locker, the fucking Pokemon cards he collected when he was six, I don’t care, anything. You keep your hands off his stuff, and I’ll keep my hands off him. But if you ever do anything like that to him again, I fucking swear to you, Joss, I will show you just how ‘not over him’ I can really be.” Without another word to any of us, he climbs over my legs and strides towards the wings, disappearing backstage to snarl orders at the members of stage crew who haven’t already begun to work on their latest pieces of scenery. Only once he’s out of sight does Joss finally move to capture her audience again, letting the tears start to fall. Immediately, Miranda swoops in to comfort her, joined a minute later by a hesitant, apprehensive Annabelle, who shoots me a slightly alarmed what the fuck am I supposed to be doing look. Joss pulls her sleeve over her hand to dab at her damp eyes and says, “I swear, sometimes I think he’s the worst thing that has ever happened to me.” “No, he’s not,” I say, and her furious eyes snap to me so suddenly that she almost forgets that she’s supposed to be crying. I shrug and say, “But if you hurt him again, I promise you that I will be.”